


Unlikely Acquaintanceship

by hypnoshatesme



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Mostly Fluff, Other, They're friends okay, but like...very light, just Good Vibes here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25077181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypnoshatesme/pseuds/hypnoshatesme
Summary: Befriending the entity of insanity made Gerry's existence as a ghost a little less boring.
Relationships: Gerard Keay & Michael | The Distortion, Gerard Keay/Michael | The Distortion
Comments: 18
Kudos: 163





	Unlikely Acquaintanceship

**Author's Note:**

> Somebody on tumblr asked for Distortion!Michael meeting Book!Gerry and oh it gave me so many IDEAS.

They left him again. It was becoming a habit. They'd read him out, try to get him to answer their monster related questions and then they'd 'forget' to dismiss him and left him in the boring shed. Not that Gerry could do much of course. It wasn't like he could interact with anything. All he could do was read his page, left open. He knew it by heart now, was desensitized to looking at his last moments scribbled on his own skin. It had been a slow process to get used to it. 

Gerry had not trusted Gertrude but he had wanted to, had tried to. The betrayal he felt when he was read for the first time, when he had seen the book, had been gutting. Except Gerry didn't quite feel the same anymore, feelings were twice removed, but it still hurt. Not as much as existing did. He remembered her talking about death being a mercy, and it hurt to realise that she did not consider him worthy of it. And Gerry hated that he was still hurt by it. That he had expected things to be different. Gerry really should have known better after so many years of being fucked over.

He didn't notice the door at first, he was reading. _ And so Gerard ended _ . He wished. He wished he was ended. Eventually, Gerry caught movement at the corner of his eye and looked up just in time to see the creature step out of the yellow door. Gerry was confused at first at the utter lack of confusion, until he remembered he wasn't really there. He wasn't alive so his senses didn't feel the presence of the Spiral the way he used to. Gerry’s senses were no more.

Gerry had never met this particular aspect of the spiral but he had read about it. He had even found the assistant’s paperwork while going through Gertrude’s things, the poor guy she had sent into the hallways to stop the ritual. Michael. According to some statements Gerry read, it still went by the name. 

It was eyeing the room with eyes full of fractal patterns and when they settled on Gerry he was fully prepared for the discomfort of looking at those nightmarish colours. He felt nothing and the disappointment he felt at that cut deep. Not that it mattered. There was nowhere to cut.

Its face was doing all sorts of things Gerry couldn't comprehend, but there was something...surprised about it. Curious, as it approached him - except it didn't, it just was there suddenly - many-boned knife-tipped hand coming up to touch him. He pressed his lips together at the familiarity of the motion. It was the first thing they had done after they read him out the first time too. Despite the fact that he knew he couldn't feel it, he still tensed. His form flickered a little where the knife points went straight through him. He didn't feel it, but he saw it in its face. It looked...delighted. 

"You shouldn't be."

It hurt to hear it and Gerry wanted to pretend that it was the glass shard voice, off-synch, words overlapping, that hurt. It would surely have been were he still alive, still human. Unfortunately Gerry had always been too fond of knowing and he knew that wasn't the truth. He shouldn't be. Not he shouldn't be  _ here _ , which would have also applied, but he shouldn't  _ be _ , because he shouldn't. He wasn't. 

"Neither should you," he decided to answer. Gertrude’s old assistant merged with part of the Spiral. Between that, Gerry's ghostly existence nearly paled. Well, he couldn't really pale any more.

Gerry couldn’t quite place the expression that made its way unto its face in jagged lines, utterly unnatural. It looked searching, maybe, but for what Gerry couldn’t tell for sure. "You know me?" It sounded displeased.

"About you,” Gerry corrected, maybe a little too quickly. It had been a while since he had a proper conversation and he didn’t want it to end this quickly. “We worked for the same person."

"Ah.” It seemed to relax, as far as Gerry could tell. Its eyes wandered over him again. It was strange to be looked at so intensely. The hunters barely dared to raise their eyes. “This was her doing?"

Gerry nodded. It didn’t sound surprised which he guessed made sense. It looked around once more. Gerry wondered if it wanted something. Maybe it  _ was _ searching for something.

"Why are you here?"

It shrugged. "Why are you here?"

Gerry looked confused for a moment, not having expected that question. He pointed at the book on the table. "Can't move the book." He couldn’t move _ anything _ , couldn’t even feel it if he tried. His hand just went through it. He’d tried too many times.

Michael’s eyes followed as he pointed at the book. They lingered on it as it spoke, "Shouldn't you be in there?"

"They keep forgetting to dismiss me." Gerry tried to sound blank, but the bitterness still made it into his words. It didn’t really matter, he guessed. But he didn’t like to show how they were getting to him.

"They?"

"Some hunters,” Gerry sighed, running a hand through his hair. His old habits didn’t die, even though he was always struck by how much  _ nothing _ he felt every time he did it. “I don't know how they got the book but they've been using me as some kind of handbook for monster hunting." 

He managed better with the neutral expression and tone this time, but saying it still made him seethe, no matter how much he pretended. He didn’t even know why he was trying so hard in front of Michael. Maybe he was afraid that once he let loose he would be unable to go back to blank when the hunters came back. He didn’t want  _ them _ to know they were getting to him.

"Ah." 

Gerry would’ve loved to be able to read it, to understand that many-layered tone in such a short noise. It was watching him again and Gerry felt like it was trying to read him somehow. Its silence was odd.

"You're Michael, right?," he said to break it.

Michael seemed to consider its answer, "Among other things.” It didn’t sound too happy about it. “What about you?"

Gerry guessed it was a fair question. He might have hesitated answering if he were still alive, if it still mattered. It didn’t, though, and he was tired of only hearing his name from the hunters. He was tired of hearing that name in general. He’d never been Gerard. 

"You can call me Gerry."

It seemed to be mouthing the name, before grinning. "I might."

Its grin was infectious, or maybe Gerry was just desperate to try out some other expression but the scowl he’d been wearing since death. One way or another, he grinned back and Michael’s grin seemed to grow wider, too wide to really look right on that face. Nothing about that face looked right, but Gerry didn’t really care. He was already dead anyways. He might as well try to enjoy this conversation, the breath of fresh air - not that he breathed - between drawn-out interrogations by people who clearly felt uncomfortable around him, but found him too useful to let go. 

Somehow, it always ended up being about usefulness with him, no matter how hard he had tried to escape. It was like death had decided to really shove it in that his worth lay in being used and nothing more. Gerry was so tired.

“Gerry.” It pulled him out of his thoughts with his name, said slowly and deliberately, as if to taste it. “There’s nothing interesting in here.”

Gerry laughed, stopping just as quickly, surprised at the sound. Michael was eyeing him like it might be reconsidering its words. The door was still in the middle of the room, the brightest object Gerry had seen in a long time, and maybe in his life. It opened again and Gerry’s face fell, only for a second, only until he could catch himself and put on his blank expression again. He wondered if he had done something wrong as he watched it disappear behind the door again. He guessed there was no reason for that to stop happening in death.

*

Michael hadn't intended to go back to that shed. Nothing was there and there weren't many humans to feed on close. There was no reason to return. Except for Gerry, of course. Which also shouldn't have been a reason because Michael couldn't feed on the dead. But maybe that was what made it think back to that meeting. The fact that he was utterly unbothered by it. Just continuing the conversation like normal. That was new. New things were exciting. So it found itself in the small, stuffy room again and, as expected, Gerry was there, leaning against the table. Or hovering, rather, it didn’t look like he was actually touching the table itself. And this time, he also noticed it right away.

"Michael!," Gerry sounded way too excited at its appearance and for once he was thankful he was a ghost because he would've probably blushed at his own tone. 

Michael was a surprised too, looking at him with eyebrows raised way too high. It had obviously not expected the enthusiasm, either. Gerry would have absolutely blushed by this point.

“Uh...sorry.” He brushed his hand through his hair, wondering how he managed to sound so flustered and so dead at the same time. “It-it gets really boring. Just staring at this room. Every distraction is, uh….exciting.” It sounded like a pathetic excuse, but it was, unfortunately, an honest one. 

Gerry had believed it would never come back and he’d be stuck staring at nothing forever again. After it left he had realised how much he really missed just  _ talking _ to somebody. Something, he guessed. He usually tried to keep his mouth shut with the hunters and talking to himself only made him very aware of the ghostly quality of his voice, so he’d rather not. 

Michael looked around at the disgustingly boring interior. It looked as dull as before, so it guessed it could see that. It wasn’t entirely sure how it felt about being greeted like that, though. It wasn’t usual for people to be  _ glad _ to see it, even when it was looking human. Normally they were, if not outright afraid, unnerved. Which was good, of course. Like an appetizer. But Michael couldn’t  _ feel _ anything from Gerry, and it certainly hadn’t expected the enthusiasm. It looked genuine, too, if the flusteredness that followed was anything to go by. Not that Michael was particularly good at recognising emotions, but it usually could tell a lie from a truth easily. And Gerry wasn’t lying. Peculiar.

“Did they forget to read you back in again?”

Gerry took a moment, having expected some kind of reaction to what he had said. If it wanted to ignore that embarrassing comment, Gerry was more than fine with that. “Yes.” He rolled his eyes. “I think they do it on purpose.”

Michael couldn’t imagine what they gained from leaving Gerry outside if they weren’t even here. The nonsensical quality of it would have been a great reason for  _ it _ , but humans rarely did things without a motive, from what it knew. “Why?”

Gerry shrugged. “So I might get more cooperative. I...don’t provide the most helpful of answers, usually.”

Michael got curious, head tilting to the side. “Why? If you know they’ll leave you like this?”

“Because I’m no fucking encyclopedia for convenient usage. I’m a person.” His voice went a little lower as he added, “Well...I used to be.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “Does it matter?”

“I don’t care. It’s...I just refuse.” He sighed. “It’s not like this is awfully different from being inside the book anyways. The pain is worse, more...draining. But by now...it doesn’t really matter. I’d rather spend my existence not playing into their hands. At least that much autonomy I still have.” 

Gerry had had no intention of saying all that, but he felt so much better now that he had put it into words. He didn’t care if he was being unreasonable, whether he was even making sense, it just felt good to have said what he had been mulling over for so long. He hadn’t actively set out not to cooperate. It had been an automatic reaction at first, mostly spite. There was probably still a lot of spite involved now. But it was also just something to cling to that was  _ his _ , that was  _ him _ . 

Michael understood some of it. Mostly the stubborn, frustrated tone, the reminder that it, too, used to be much freer to do as it pleased, before it had been bound, before it became. 

“Sounds like a high price to pay for pettiness,” it said instead.

Gerry shrugged, unsure whether he had imagined the appreciative tone. “It’s better than giving into the boredom and my new role as handbook, in my opinion.”

Michael looked around again, slowly, mumbling to itself, “They could at least provide you with something more interesting to look at…”

“Like you,” he blurted out without thinking, and then regretted it, because that sounded like he was hitting on it, which he was fairly sure he wasn’t. At least it hadn’t been his intention. He watched it nervously, wondering if he should try to clarify or if that would only make it worse.

Its eyes settled on him again, thoughtful for a moment, before its lips pulled into an amused grin, “Am I interesting?”

Gerry had been expecting some sort of smug understone, a knowing glint - okay, maybe not that, it’s eyes were constantly flickering and glinting and shiny - but its voice just sounded amused, a light tease somewhere in those layers, but nothing that would suggest it interpreted what he had said as flirting. 

Gerry relaxed, matching its playful tone, “I could also just be very bored.”

It laughed and Gerry grinned, knowing full well that if his ears had still been human they would have probably disagreed with how satisfied he felt about making it laugh. It had been so long since he tried to lighten the mood with some stupid comment or another. It was good to hear laughter again.

Michael stayed a little longer this time and they continued their pointless chat. It sat down on the table next to him at some point and, clearly bored with the surroundings and started to change them mid-conversation. Gerry couldn’t always comprehend the pattern and shapes, the colours that seemed to overlap but never do what would’ve been expected. It was obvious that all of that wasn’t actually there, some fractals settling in mid-air, hovering furniture replacing, overlapping with the few items in the shed. And yet it also looked perfectly reasonable, in a way, and Gerry guessed being dead didn’t make him completely immune to the Spiral’s doings, since he knew, realistically, that reasonable was not an applicable term for anything his eyes were perceiving. 

It was an interesting juxtaposition, making him lose track of the conversation multiple times, so it ended up being more disjointed. Michael seemed rather satisfied with that, eyeing him with curious interest when he dropped his sentence to look at a particularly bright coil, only to pick it up somewhat close-ish to how he had left it a moment later. Michael knew that if Gerry had actually been affected by what it was doing, there would have been a lot more confused frowns and headaches. He just seemed to be genuinely interested in looking at what it was making. His distraction wasn’t really its doing, but his own.

*

It became a habit to stop by the shed for Michael. Gerry wasn’t always there and it would leave again, then. But when he  _ was _ there, it would stay. 

Gerry found himself not feeling as frustrated every time they left him outside the book after another drawn-out interrogation. It wasn’t the case every time, but Gerry knew that Michael might appear. It did so sporadically, and Gerry still found himself stuck alone fairly often. But even those times were somewhat better now that he had some new things to think about from their past conversations. 

At least he wasn’t stuck thinking about the same things over and over, reading that page again and again. He tried not to glance at it too much and it was easier when he instead tried to remember the exact shade Michael had turned the table into the last time. Even without it there, it served as a good distraction from his situation. And of course, he did still have the hope that it might appear.

They still talked about whatever, and nothing at all. It didn’t really matter, because it at least wasn’t trying to get Gerry to talk about the Fears or the Leitners or any of that, and that was refreshing. He could barely remember points in his life where anyone had shown interest in him rather than wanting to use him to get to a book or whatever. Which was why he had been highly suspicious, especially in the beginning. He was expecting it to trick him into telling it...something. It didn’t matter what. Gerry just knew that that was how it usually went. But it never tried to bring the conversation to the details people usually wanted. If it ever asked for further information, it was about  _ him _ . It sounded genuinely interested in whatever Gerry had been thinking or doing during whatever story he was telling, ignoring the bits and pieces about the actual technicalities of how he managed to hunt down that book or destroy this monster. 

It made Gerry paranoid, at first, and he spent much time trying to figure out what it was trying to achieve. But as time passed, and it just continued doing the same, Gerry relaxed. It felt strange, at first, to talk about himself. But Michael continued to encourage him. It was satisfying, in a way.

*

Gerry could hear the rain outside as they fell into comfortable silence. Michael was trying to fit more patterns unto the walls, humming a distorted tune, which somehow sounded even worse mixed with the rain. Gerry missed feeling the rain. Rainy days always made him aware of how much he missed feeling  _ anything _ , really. Michael distracted him, yes, but Gerry was still dead and in pain and so tired. He’d been wondering if Michael would help him with that for a bit by now. It at least seemed not to hate him.

“Would you destroy the page if I asked you to?,” he ended up asking, disrupting its tune. He was looking at the floor that seemed undecided about what colour to be right now.

Michael looked at him and let the shed get back to its initial state. “No.”

Gerry wasn’t surprised, but he still felt like some unreasonable, fleeting hope had just been crushed. It had been stupid to hope for mercy from it. “Oh…I guess it’s not really your style.”

“I’d miss the company.” Michael said, staring at him.

Gerry tried to find his playful tone, but he couldn’t keep the lingering disappointment out of his voice, “You would?”

Michael grinned. “Maybe I’m just very bored.”

Gerry froze for a moment at the scarily accurate copy of the tone he had used to say something rather similar a while ago. He burst into laughter, then, sadness momentarily forgotten. Gerry hadn’t really expected it to agree to destroying the page. He had not, however, expected it to give him such a personal reason.

“What if you get bored of me?” There was always some lingering anxiety about it eventually not coming back and Gerry being left to his miserable excuse of a life after death again. He still tried to make it sound more like he was teasing it.

Michael watched him for a long moment before saying, “Hm...You’re anything but boring.”

Gerry grinned, “Especially from you, I take that as one hell of a compliment.”

“Take it as you want.” Michael chuckled. There was another short moment of silence before it spoke again, “You’ve been silent today. You didn’t finish your story last time. About your holiday.”

Gerry took a moment to remember what it was talking about, and another second to be confused, since he was fairly sure he had, in fact, finished telling that story. He looked up at Michael, who was watching him expectedly from its place sat on the table, swinging its legs back and forth despite them being too long for that to be possible. He shrugged, and started to talk about that trip from the start again, since he didn’t know where he had supposedly left off. He did enjoy thinking about that one. Even if it hadn’t quite worked out as a break, he still had had a fun time in Italy. It put a smile on his face. Michael looked satisfied.

*

Gerry was often in a bad mood when Michael arrived, eyebrows pinched into a v, lips a tight line. It became less with time, and even when Michael caught him on a particularly bad day, it usually managed to distract him enough to make that expression go away.

Today, however, there was something else to his face, something more than the usual weary anger. There was less anger, more despair. Gerry looked  _ hurt  _ and Michael didn’t know if it was more struck by that expression or by its own distaste of it. Gerry hadn’t even noticed it.

“Gerry?” It didn’t wait for him to acknowledge it. “What happened?”

He looked up, surprised, though it did nothing to wash away the pain in his eyes. “Michael.” He brushed a strand of hair behind his ear. He hadn’t expected it, had forgotten about it, in a way. He guessed he was rather shaken. “Nothing, really. They’re getting annoyed with my lacking cooperation and are trying harder. I...should probably be glad they can’t hurt me physically anymore. I think I really burned down their patience.” Part of Gerry felt some form of self-satisfaction about making them this desperate, but even he could hear the waver in his voice.

“What did they do instead?” They clearly had still found a way to hurt him, and Michael’s anger grew the more Gerry said.

Gerry looked away, letting his hair fall back into his face and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “They dug up some stuff...I...it’s fine. It’s...I’m fine.” Gerry didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to think about it. It had been enough to be confronted with the past once. He didn’t need to relive it once more.

Gerry did not, in fact, sound fine. Michael felt an urge to comfort, suddenly much bigger than its boiling anger, but it didn’t know how that worked. It hesitated for a moment, before walking up to him and leaning against the table next to him, not quite touching, but close enough that Gerry would have felt its presence if he had been alive. It didn’t, however, know how to proceed, so it just stood there, looking at him and trying to determine if there was anything it could say to make that much tension bleed away.

After a moment, Gerry leaned his head against its arm, more as a sentiment, as he knew he’d fall straight through if he were to really lean in. But he did appreciate it being there, and he wanted to show that, somehow, without having to actually talk. Gerry didn’t really want to talk. 

Michael brought its hand up to pet his back, but it went right through him, making Gerry’s form flicker for a moment where it had disrupted it. Gerry’s smile was wry. “Doesn’t work.”

“Sorry.” It ran its hand over the length of his back, careful to keep it from going straight into Gerry again. It just felt...appropriate. Maybe that was how comfort worked.

Gerry didn’t feel anything, of course, but he was vaguely aware of the movement. He appreciated the sentiment, smile sad, but a little softer, “Thanks.”

Michael wasn’t sure for what, but it didn’t feel like talking. It needed the focus to not accidentally stab Gerry with its fingers. Even though it knew Gerry didn’t feel it, Michael felt like it would defeat the point of whatever it was trying to do. 

Gerry closed his eyes and tried to imagine how it might feel. It wasn’t easy since he lacked a reference, but it certainly helped with distracting his thoughts from going back to nightmares he had hoped he could have left behind in the living world.

*

Michael could not forget the tone of voice, the expression and for the first time it considered maybe doing something about Gerry’s situation. It wouldn’t destroy the page. It wasn’t sure if it could. It would be direct interference with the End and Michael would rather not take sides. There weren’t sides to take, really, with the End. But maybe he could do something else.

The next time Michael came to visit, Gerry wasn’t there. It happened, sometimes. Michael had no sense of time, and the hunters probably didn’t work on a schedule, so often Michael would open the door and Gerry wasn’t there. It had considered before to read him out itself, but it didn’t want to disturb Gerry. He said it was better in the book.

Michael opened the book, leafing through it until it found Gerry’s page. It had never read it, but it always lay open, the skin looking fresher than the rest. Of course, it also had his name on it. His real name. It was strange to read it. Gerry was Gerry and thinking of him as Gerard Keay was like thinking of a different person. One Michael probably wouldn’t like as much. Maybe that would be for the better. It didn’t know and it didn’t care.

It cut the page out with its finger, carefully, before closing the book again and going back through its door, page in hand. The hallway didn’t like the page, something so clearly belonging to the End was an unwelcome intrusion. But Michael didn’t care. It  _ was _ the hallway and it liked what was in the page very much.

It started reading. It didn’t like the words, but it continued, aware of Gerry appearing, slowly taking shape the more it read. And Michael made sure it was solid, his form, gave him colour and life, both a lie, carefully crafted and prepared in the last couple weeks or so. Michael didn’t know how long it had been. It didn’t matter.

When it looked up from reading, Gerry was standing in front of it, expression one of bewilderment, looking as much as Michael could manage like he had used to. It had mostly gone of what his ghost form gave and filled it with colour, with matter that wasn’t. It had found some photographs, too, for orientation. 

None of them had prepared it for the intensity of that gaze as Gerry’s eyes settled on it after looking around in confusion. It forgot how to speak. It just stared back, marvelling at having something that looked so human look so directly at it without flinching. It should hate that, probably. It didn’t.

“Michael? What-where?” His voice sounded different, more  _ there _ , and Gerry’s eyes went wide with awe.

“The hallway.” It showed him the page.

“You stole it?” Gerry sounded genuinely surprised. It had never even looked at that book properly before, had shown no interest in it at all.

Michael nodded slowly, unsure if it had done right, and even more unsure about whether it wanted the answer to that question to be yes or no. “Yes. I thought...Maybe you’d like it more in here.” 

Gerry had discovered his hands by now, eyes going wide at the sight of skin. He touched one hand with the other. It felt real. Gerry’s ghost form never yielded to itself, so the fact that he could touch his hand wasn’t new. The fact that he  _ felt _ something was. It wasn’t exactly skin, that much he could tell. It felt like deception, though Gerry didn’t know what that meant, not really. But he felt it.

“What did you do? What...how-” He could barely decide on what to ask, what to  _ say  _ as he looked down at himself and actually saw his body, instead of seeing through it.

“I tried.” Michael didn’t know why it was so nervous, why it was watching so closely for Gerry’s reaction. Or maybe it did. It couldn’t tell. “You can change it, if you please. It’s your body. Well...an illusion of such.”

Gerry looked at it, confused. “What do you mean, I can change it?” He held his hand up to his eyes, but it looked like it used to. It looked like his hand. “What is this?”

Too many questions, none of them Michael wanted to answer. Or maybe it couldn’t. “Try changing something.”

Gerry gave it a suspicious glance before frowning at his fingernails, willing them to darken. He had gotten sloppy with keeping up his appearance close to the end. He didn’t want to look at unpainted nails now. It reminded him of how he had pushed the headaches and dizziness back so Gertrude wouldn’t decide he wasn’t worth bothering with anymore. She clearly considered him plenty useful if she ended up putting him in that book, he guessed, but it was no comfort. She still abandoned him.

The nails turned a glossy black and he gasped, running a thumb over one of them. It felt very close to how he remembered it feeling, just one step removed from how it should be. He looked up at Michael in wonder.

“It’ll only hold up as long as you’re in here.” Michael offered, unsure what to say when Gerry was looking at it like that. 

“It’s...I’m still dead, right?” He was still tracing his fingernails, eyebrows drawn together.

Michael couldn’t really interpret that expression. It didn’t really know if it was a critique or a simple observation, or something else, so it tried, “You can be see-through in here too, if you want. I just thought-”

“No! No, I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful!” He shook his head, looking up at it again with a small smile. “I was...I’m just trying to...understand.” Gerry was sure he would’ve gotten a headache from trying that if he’d still been human. Being in the hallway would have probably made him feel uncomfortable by now, too. He was definitely dead.

Michael’s head popped to the side again, as it often did when it found whatever Gerry said peculiar. “Understanding isn’t something you will find here.”

Gerry laughed, and it sounded properly like his laugh, no ghostly quality to it, and he stopped, surprised. That’s why he had asked. It felt so  _ real _ . He felt so alive, somehow, while at same being highly aware that he wasn’t. Michael looked disappointed when the laughter stopped, and Gerry chuckled.

“I guess you’re right I...it’ll take some getting used to.” Not wanting to understand just wasn’t in Gerry’s nature. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t embrace this. Could he embrace something? “Wait, can I...touch things in here? Does it work? Or is it just like outside, where it only work on me?”

Michael shrugged. “Try it out.” 

Gerry touched the frame of the picture next to him. He hadn’t noticed it before. He was fairly sure it hadn’t been there. It felt wrong, a lot like he did, but it felt solid. He pressed a little bit but his hand didn’t go through. Until he willed it to and nearly lost his balance. He steadied himself again, brushing his hair behind his ear, worried about blushing until he got too distracted with the fact that his hair felt so much like it used to. 

He looked back at Michael who was still watching him with its grin that could have been a smile if you’d switch the definitions of the words. Gerry wondered, not for the first time, how it might feel.

“Michael?” Gerry sounded embarrassingly bashful and yet somehow not as nervous as he actually felt. “Can I touch you? I mean- i-in general? Is...is it possible?” He ran a hand through his hair nervously, “Would it be okay?”

Now it was definitely smiling, Gerry thought. Maybe. It held out its hand and Gerry felt very much like when he had wondered about how sharp his mother’s skinning knife was as a child, an urge to reach out and find out while at the same time being well-aware that it was a bad idea. Michael’s hand didn’t cut him as the knife had and Gerry marvelled at the lack of the pain he had been bracing himself for. It didn’t feel like a hand, either, skin so strange under his fingers he found it difficult to call it that. But he  _ could _ feel it. He barely heard the short, delighted laughter that escaped him. 

Michael smiled at the noise again, lovely as it echoed in its hallways, and it slowly closed its fingers around Gerry’s hands, squeezing it. And Gerry wanted to cry, because this was a lot of new, confusing things happening at once and he had no idea how to cope. He had a new body, that wasn’t really a body, was only a lie of a body as long as he stayed in this place with its maddening colours and patterns. There was a hand with too many bones gently holding his own, not pushing or pulling or making any attempt to hurt him. There were definitely tears in his eyes now. Michael looked troubled.

“Are you alright?” People often cried when it brought them into the hallways. Usually not this quickly. And Michael had assumed Gerry would probably be immune to the constant pull of insanity since he was dead. Maybe it was the pain of the book? “Is...is it making the pain worse?”

Gerry blinked, making some of the tears run down his cheeks, surprised at the fact that he hadn’t even thought of the pain. Even though it had been a constant for years now, it was hard to ignore, all encompassing and constant. Gerry barely felt it in the hallway. There was too much distortion. He could feel it was still there, but it didn’t seem quite right, anymore. It was strange. He shook his head.

“No...I think it’s making it...less.” Not necessarily less bad, or intense. Maybe not even less in quantity. Just...less. He couldn’t explain it. “I...I’m just overwhelmed. I don’t-I didn’t think-” 

Gerry didn’t know what he didn’t think. He didn’t think his existence would ever change again from the misery it had become. He didn’t think anyone would help him. Kindness had been hard to come by in life and he hadn’t expected to find it in death. Or he had. A hope quickly crushed when the pain had started. 

He sniffed, unable to explain what he meant to say and Michael pulled him closer, carefully. Gerry knew he could pull away, Michael’s grip was lose, his tugging a suggestion, a question Gerry answered silently by following as it navigated them into a hug. Gerry could feel its hands on his back, on his shoulders, heavy but light, gentle. He didn’t feel trapped but  _ held _ , and he buried his face in Michael’s chest, wrapped his arms around its middle. It full of strange angles under his fingers. 

He didn’t know the source of the tears anymore, but he didn’t fight them. It felt good, relieving. He felt Michael’s hand running over his hair, and he half-expected it to pull, but it didn’t. It just continued the soothing motion, the other hand still holding him tightly, but not too tight. 

“Thank you,” he mumbled, voice barely above a whisper.

Michael nodded, too struck by everything to form words. Not that it knew what to say. It hadn’t expected this. It didn’t know what it had expected, and it had worried about the tears, worried this hadn’t been a good idea. It relaxed, now. Gerry’s words were genuine, it could have told if they weren’t. If he was thanking it, then it hadn’t been too bad of an idea. It felt like too much of a thank you for the little Michael had actually done, but it didn’t dwell on it. It wasn’t like it understood a whole lot about emotions, but it was fairly sure that what it was feeling now was relief. And maybe something else.

**Author's Note:**

> this was a lot of fun to figure out and write, hope you enjoyed reading it!


End file.
